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Morgan reflects on Game 5 hit vs. D-backs

Morgan reflects on Game 5 hit vs. D-backs

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MILWAUKEE -- The D-backs returned to Miller Park on Friday for the first time since the best day of Nyjer Morgan's baseball life.

The Brewers' outfielder ended the D-backs' 2011 season when he bounced a single up the middle in the 10th inning of Game 5 of the National League Division Series, a hit that sent the Brewers on to the NL Championship Series and cemented a permanent place for Morgan in franchise lore.

"Honestly, I don't think it's even going to hit me until I'm done playing this game," Morgan said. "I know what it means to the city and the organization, but it hasn't hit me yet. It was just playing another game."

Morgan's bouncer is on a short list of the most memorable hits in Brewers history, alongside Robin Yount's two home runs off the Orioles' Jim Palmer in an American League East-clinching win in 1982, Cecil Cooper's winning single in Game 5 of that year's AL Championship Series, the back-to-back home runs by Rob Deer and Dale Sveum on Easter Sunday in 1987 and Ryan Braun's go-ahead homer in the 2008 regular-season finale that helped clinch Milwaukee's return to postseason play.

Morgan has seen the replay of his winning hit once or twice in the months since, but he's reminded about it every time a fan stops him on the street or at a mall in Milwaukee.

"That's the best part about it," he said. "When I'm around the city and understand what that meant to the community and the city of Milwaukee, words can't explain the expression on fans' faces when we're talking. It means so much to me, seeing the excitement in their eyes."